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Last night, Jen and I finally made it to Butcher and the Rye. I’ve been wanting to go here for months. First I had the surgery and wasn’t exactly getting out of my house and then the winter sucked. I think we made plans to go twice and were snowed out both times. So weather is finally improving (it may be in the 70’s this weekend!!!) and we made it to this awesome little restaurant.

This restaurant is brought to us by the same folks who run the super popular Meat and Potatoes just a few blocks down from this location. Both places are difficult to get weekend reservations for, so if you want to go on a Friday or Saturday, make a reservation a few weeks in advance. The inside of Butcher is rather dark and intimate. I mean, you are pretty much right on top of the table next to you, so if you want to have a private conversation, good luck. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it’s not someplace I’d necessarily want to go for a romantic night out.

When you walk in, the first thing you’ll likely notice is this gigantic wall of whiskey! They have a large drink menu that includes a whiskey flight. Alas, that did not sound like a good idea on a Tuesday night, maybe some other time.

After we sat down, I looked down at our table and had to giggle. Each table had a different graphic on it, this was ours…

I found it fitting that I got the Butcher (played brilliantly by Daniel Day Lewis) from Gangs of New York as this was one of the first Leonardo DiCaprio movies where I actually looked at him as an adult and not a kid.

I had been looking at the menu for days, okay weeks, I won’t lie. One thing I knew for certain that we’d get, the Brussles sprouts. They did not disappoint me. I still intend to make a list of the best sprouts in Pittsburgh at some point as so many places have awesome recipes involving this veggie that was the bane of many childhood dinners. These were wonderfully salty between the prep and the fresh grated parmigiano on top. It was also served with a creamy lemon aioli that really complimented the Brussles sprouts.

Jen and I debated whether to get just a few small plates or our own larger plates. We were all ready to just get 3-4 small plate options but then our server totally changed our mind. There is a burger on the side menu that was truly fantastic. They grind the meat fresh and only made something like 25 patties each day. I know, we ordered a burger at a place like this, but it was not a normal burger. The pickles were made in house, the onion was grilled and the sesame seed brioche bun was the perfect way for this burger to be served. Our only issue was that we were sharing and Jen and I have very different ideas of how meat should be cooked. We ended up in the middle (I would have gone with medium-rare, Jen would have gone well done). Either way, it was still amazing….

So of course, our eyes were much larger than our stomachs and we went with one other small plate because we could not pass up the mac and cheese. This was made for grown-ups with four different cheeses and was cheesy and creamy and absolutely delicious. Mac and cheese is totally my guilty pleasure food, I was a little devastated that I was too full to enjoy more than a few bites of this.

So despite sending back about half of the mac and cheese and a few bites of the Brussles sprouts and being ridiculously full, we did order a small desert. Coconut ice cream with carrot cake and some fried shaved carrot. Again, we could only eat about half of this, but the ice cream was homemade and it was fabulous as was the cake itself.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and fully intend to make a repeat visit. The ambiance and the staff were both lovely as was each dish that we ordered. They checked on us frequently, but not too often and that is a difficult line to walk as a server. I would absolutely recommend going here for dinner, but again, make reservations. It’s by no stretch a large space so I understand why it’s a little difficult to get in to. And I said this about another new downtown restaurant recently, but I’m so happy to see more places like this going into the downtown area. It’s just nice to have a lot of options in that area!